


Counting Crows

by eastern_wind



Series: Shadows of the Past [2]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: Antivan Crows, F/F, POV Solas, fade memories, the darkest hour prompts month
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-08
Updated: 2018-08-08
Packaged: 2019-06-23 22:50:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15616755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eastern_wind/pseuds/eastern_wind
Summary: Prompt - ALSO LITERALLY ANYTHING WITH THE COUNTING CROWS NURSERY RHYME one for sorrow two for mirth three for a wedding four for a birth five for silver six for gold seven for a secret never to be told eight for a kiss nine for a wish and Ten for a bird you must not miss >:) - @fat-rolls-frictions





	Counting Crows

Sulahn'nan's First is surprisingly good with children, I came to know. He teaches them Dalish lore and they listen with rapt attention as the stories unfurl before them, full of heroes and battles, great deeds and mischief. He moves gracefully in front of two rows of small and agitated cubs and his long white braid whips around his hips with every step as he summons his magic to create illusion after illusion of the Second Exalted March. It lacks bloodiness and instead of dying elves and humans seem to fall asleep, defeated, but the lesson for today is not inevitability of death either.

Cubs seem surprisingly invested in the feats of Eshtae, an elven archer from unnamed clan, and Lyndel, the first Keeper of Sulahn’nan. Revas recounts the events with such passion that even older clansmen stop by the fire to listen to him, nodding gravely as he speaks mournfully of the death of Lindiranae and the fall of Dales. His eyes lose their color of dark moss behind the veil of tears, but he goes on, ignoring the shaking in his voice. 

Revas is always like this, I gathered. The pain and loss he teaches the cubs about, he cannot escape himself, but the boy  _ chooses  _ to feel it. “It’s easier to remember when it hurts,” he says to me as I approach him when the children are shooed away for dinner. We walk slowly to his aravel, I at my best speed, he - taking his time to think.

“Why you?” I ask him, dropping ungracefully on the ground and leaning on the wheel of his home. Almost three weeks have passed since my awakening, but my body is still a wreck, good for nothing but sitting around and watching this new, cruel world.

“Someone has to,” he smiles wryly and throws his head back to watch the moons crawl up the sky from the peaks of Vimmarks. “It is Keeper’s duty to remember. We’ve lost too much and too many.” I hum in agreement, not really having anything to console him with, but the man straightens suddenly, turning away to avoid looking at me. “I apologize, hahren. It is not my place to say things like this. Comparing to you… we’ve lost nothing.” His breath hitches and he finishes in barely a whisper, “I’m sorry.”  

Sometimes I wonder, how the man with this heart of gold could grow up here, in the Clan that had spent ages half-hiding or on the run one way or another. Especially brought up by a person as detached as Tau. Then I look at her and, suddenly, I know. 

 

We don’t really speak to each other, each locked in the cage of our own mourning. Not with the words at least. Tau keeps her silence close, as a shield to protect her from losses and future pain. I simply don’t know what to say to  _ her _ and the one she reminds me of… She’s long gone now. I keep my silence closer.

But now, in the growing darkness of the inevitable night, I am sitting in the middle of the Clan’s campsite, granted with a rare sight of another side of her. There is a small bundle in Tau’s hands filling the air with angry wailing, but the woman doesn’t flinch from ear piercing cries. She just changes her hold on Clan’s newborn and rocks gently, her luminous green eyes staring up, where the mountains disappear in the heavy clouds in a promise of the snow storm.

She must be thinking of Ilen, comes the fleeting thought, but it doesn’t linger, because Tau begins to sing. A low, hoarse voice reaches me and our eyes meet for a brief second that stretches for eternity. She is not Mythal, never was and will never be, but the resemblance is so uncanny, their faces so alike as their characters differ. Still, I let the exhaustion of the day take the better of me and as my eyelids drop, heavy as the weight on my soul, I drift away to the lullaby that makes no sense, but sang by her.. It’s all I could wish for. 

When the Fade opens its welcoming embrace for me, I step forward without a doubt or reservation. Another story is already waiting for me, brought alive by the sound of Tau’s singing and here, in the emerald waters, I cannot lie to myself, I want to know her. To catalogue the differences, to marvel at their similarities, to hope for more, to prove it’s all a dream.

 

_...one for sorrow  _

A pair of big teal eyes stare up, unblinking. The woman’s fingers are forever frozen, clutching at the arrow that pierced her throat, and she cannot console two crying children at her feet anymore. They have dark raven hair, olive skin and are dressed in the usual Dalish wraps the color of Sulahn’nan - brown and forest green. The blood spills from corpse’s mouth, open in her last scream and one of the cubs scrambles back in horror.

“Eannen,” she chokes on her words, “step back! We need to run!” But the second one doesn’t move, her hold on her mother’s cold hand firm even as she weeps. 

“Mamae,” the one called Eannen sobs, “Mamae, please, wake up!” 

“I am afraid she won’t, little girl.” Leaves don’t even move when two men and a woman dressed in blacks and browns, masks covering their faces, step out of the shadows of the forest. Humans, all three, I notice, when they come closer and the woman kneels before the corpse, feeling her neck for pulse. “And you will come with us.”

Before the girls can even take a breath, she flicks her wrist and the air goes yellow with an explosion of some kind of pollen. The nameless one stumbles to her sister, wheezing, her eyes wide with fear and some kind of recognition, but it’s too late. Two small bodies fall on the ground lifelessly only to be picked up by their assailants. Humans disappear as silently as they arrived.

Blood stops, only to turn into rust.

 

_...two for mirth  _

“Yara, you’re the crow now!” a human boy shouts happily as he slaps the elven girl on the shoulder before sprinting down the street. The settlement is no doubt human too, with streets narrow and buildings crawling on top of each other like ice when rivers break up in spring. The walls are painted mute white and red tile is all broken, littering the passage where boy disappears. 

“My name is Yarathim!” the cub bellows on top of her lungs and scales up the pile, her unevenly cut black hair flapping wildly. She is older now, around seven or eight and her eyes are the same color her mother’s were, pale teal on bronzed skin. I wonder how soon will humans see her future beauty and try to ruin her.

Sounds of fight echo from the alley the two disappeared in and I move through the Fade, surprisingly pliant today, to see Yara sitting on top of her defeated playmate. She is grinning and tugging at boy’s ears in retaliation. “My name is Yarathim Sulahn’nan and one day I will find my clan again, believe it!”

“Whatever ya say!” the boy squeaks, trying to throw her off entirely unsuccessfully. “Jus’ lemme go or I’ll tell Master!”

“Fine,” Yara scoffs and jumps off. “You’re no fun!”

“I’m all fun,” he starts arguing immediately, even though he is still lying on the ground and there’s a nice bruise starting on his forehead. “I’m the most fun in the whole House and I’ll be a Grandmaster when I grow up so you won’t ever be able to win tag again!”

She opens her mouth to bite back when a soft voice rings through the alley right behind me. “Lorenzo, Yara, get back, please! Our target will arrive soon!” I turn just as a slightly taller but still thin and frail Eannen walks right through me towards her sister. “We have no time for games anymore,” she says sadly and the illusion wavers.

 

_...three for a wedding  _

“Jowan, are you crazy? You can’t marry her!” Yara is older again and this place is… Citadel? 

I walk around the small but impossibly high ceilinged room in confusion. Library? Temple? What is this place? All stone and concrete and darkness in the absence of any light source except a lone half lit chandelier, it smells strongly of magic even in the Fade.

“But I love her!” The whisper echoes, caged in between the walls and I turn my attention back at those speaking. What need I have to know of this place in the end?

“And she’s Chantry, you idiot! And you’re of Circle! No one will marry you two, but they can punish you for sure.” She is about seventeen, long hair braided into something intricate and absolutely impractical, just the way my mother did back in the days… No, this is not important now.

She has the same blue eyes from before, but worried and betraying the hurt that is erased masterfully from her oval face. Much paler now, I notice, and more tired.

“Only if they know!” the man hisses, his arms flailing in agitation so his robe looks like a banner in the wind. He is tall and smells of blood. “Yara, please! You’re my only friend. Lily is pregnant. If we don’t run now and marry, they’ll make me Tranquil and take the kid away!”

Something shifts in Yara’s eyes, a pain that goes as fast as it came, and she grasps at Jowan’s hand. “Let’s go.”

 

_...four for a birth _

“How could he...” she spits on the ground and opens her palms above the midsection of a redhead girl, letting the magic flow freely, “...use his own child…for this... Fenedhis, Lily, you’re losing too much blood!” Spell after spell comes to life at her will and I marvel at her resolve. 

Magic pools around her like a shawl and falls on the bleeding girl all at once in a cleansing wave. For someone born in these dark times, Yara shows a great talent to magic, but healing doesn't come easy to her. She pushes and pulls at the Fade, panicked and angry, still, the redhead lies unresponsive, her robe, once red, now crimson down her waist. 

“Hey, don’t you die on me, you hear me?!” Yara screams as another spell, shaky, helpless, starts to form at the tips of her fingers, but suddenly there are other people in the narrow passage and magic sings between them, steady. They stop the blood and stabilize the girl, and even though her child is lost, she will live.

“You can let go, Yara,” an old man says and ruffles her hair gently. “You’ve done well. You are free to go with Master Duncan now.”

 

_...five for silver  _

“Feels like you got the short straw,” a young round faced man laughs shakily, not looking at the corpses on the postament behind him and raises a simple silver cup to Yara’s mouth as if it is a heavy burden. “Survive it, will you?”

She hasn’t changed much, except her hair is now shorter and the braid is quite simple. Same graceful posture, same pained eyes, same empty face. She watches the bodies at her feet resolutely and nods once, “For them and those before me, I will.” She drinks it all in one go.

Her body falls on the cold stone, quivering and convulsing, rust covering her lips as she stares at the sky with empty silver veiled eyes. She doesn’t let out a sound even as the tremors subside.

“We welcome you, Warden-Recruit Yara Surana,” the man exhales when she blinks the fog away and teal reclaims its place. 

“It’s Sulahn’nan,” she whispers stubbornly, “Yarathim Sulahn’nan. And once the Blight is over, I will find my sister and my clan, believe it.”

 

_...six for gold _

“Surana, food!”

“When you humans will finally learn not to dumb my name down to your standards?” Yara practically whines and stares at her companions from the ground. I catch a glimpse of at least five of them sitting around the campfire before one very lightly dressed woman obscures the view by walking right through me. She carries herself with dignity and grace of a noble, but when she speaks, I wince, struggling to understand her thick human accent.

“'tis, mah darlin’, is an endearment I've been told. Was I misled?” she asks, seemingly disinterested, but the way her fingers thrum on the polished wood of her staff betrays her nervousness. Yara sees it too, because she gives the woman a crooked smile and sighs.

“Well, when it comes from you, it is, Morrigan. But he,” she points at the man who is on cook duty with mock disgust, “he knows my name full well. Maybe he's just as empty-headed as you say…” Yara mutters something else, but the words are lost in the mix of frustrated groaning of the cook man and Morrigan’s laugh that reminds me of bells.

“If you both turn on Alistair, my fair ladies, I am afraid he will die of embarrassment,” a lean elf with a striped tattoo on his face chimes in, grinning excitedly. “And we will lose a day of rations and his cooking to Lord Barkspawn. The dog in question, and I refuse to believe anyone but the dog can wear this name, barks happily and runs off to the firepit, its huge tongue hanging out of his mouth in excitement. The man groans again, but fills a bowl for it and leaves it on the ground.

“Have anything to add, Enchantress?” Alistair asks, tomato red and mortified, looking miserably at the last person in the camp in the middle of the forest. The woman, grey haired and seemingly in her sixties, just sighs, but there's a shadow of a smile in the crook of her lips as she watches Yara saunter to the fire and shake her bowl in front of the man.

“Silence is golden,” she sing-songs, stealing a ladle from him, “and you, out of the six of us, is the only who still having trouble with it.”

 

_...seven for a secret never to be told _

“You seem to be quite knowledgeable, my fair lady,” tattooed elf drops on the ground beside Yara with two bottles of ale and a smile. They both are covered in grime and soot, their clothes bloody and torn in places. “In the ways of killing, that is,” he continues cheerily and Yara freezes for a split second, shock, panic and pain written on her face. Then, it vanishes, replaced with a perfectly measured look of bored indifference.

“Hmm,” she offers a non-answer and busies herself with emptying the bottle. The elf turns away and hums too. 

They sit in silence for long minutes before he finally finishes his drink and stands gracefully with a hand outstretched in invitation. “Ferelden is a bit of a long road from Antiva,” he murmurs only for her to hear, “but I, for sure, can understand the need for a change of the scenery.”

Yara takes his hand.

 

_...eight for a kiss _

She has the same eyes, only not so empty, the same braid, only shorter now and with some gray streaks in it, the same smile, only not so fake. Yara stands on the curb of a human city, big, piled on itself and no doubt stinking if the rivers of swill at her feet are anything to judge by, and there’s a happy grin on her lips. She jumps from a bump to bump in the paving down the street, clutching a leather covered package to her chests and she radiates joy.

Two blocks later she lurks into a narrow alleyway and enters the building that shakes with rowdy singing and clunking of glass. The patrons of the tavern turn to stare at her, but she Yara flicks her wrist impatiently and an illusion settles on her shoulders like a mantle, hiding sharp ears and luminous eyes under the mask of a nameless human. Smart girl, I smile, invested in her story too long ago.

She hurries through the hall and up the stairs, where in the row of absolutely alike doors she chooses one and raps an uneven rhythm on the wood with her elbow. The door swings open just as I come close enough to see an unfamiliar redhead and Yara is pulled inside immediately to be encircled in an embrace. The package, however, stands between them like a wall.

“It took you long,” the woman whispers, stepping back to see what got in her way, and Yara laughs.

“Leliana, I got you something,” she murmurs and sets the package on the lone table near the door so the contents of the box make a soft thump. “I hope you like it.”

“I’ll like even Wynne’s cooking if brought by you,” the redhead says, stepping in once again, “because it is you I like.” 

I turn away when their lips meet and try to ignore the sounds of clothes falling on the ground. Even memories stuck in the Fade deserve some privacy and I'm not here to spy on lovers. It is their happiness, not mine.

 

_...nine for a wish  _

There's darkness. I don't see a thing and it's a rare occurrence here, in the place where the past is nothing but another story to be examined, dissected and assessed. I stare into it, unblinking, for what feels like days, until, all of sudden, it moves.

“Please, let them all be safe. Mythal, Falon’Din, Sylaise, Fen’Harel, anyone,” Yara pleads into impenetrable darkness, “don't let them die.”

“Shut up, knife ear!” someone bellows as uneven light spills on the floor through the gap in the door. “Shut up, or Master Howe will skin you right now!” The guard slams the door again, muttering obscenities.

There's a moment of silence followed by a hiss of pain and suddenly there's light coming from the uneven seal on the floor. Yara scribbles the signs on the floor with her own blood, filling lines with magic, for stability, for change, for protection… The seal is unknown to me, but by its contents I gather she wants explosion with power enough to blow up a mountain. This is suicide.

“Keep them safe,” she pleads one more time and takes a step in the middle of the seal. The barrier winds up around her and the walls shudder, pushing me away from the memory and further in the Fade.

 

_...ten for a bird... _

She's having scars all over her face, fresh and swollen, as if she's been crawling through the wall of thorns, but Yara is alive and her companions stand firmly beside her in the middle of the street. I see how Alistair frowns, the old woman that must be Wynne starts the shield spell without as much as a single staff movement, Leliana pulls the arrow from the quiver, the dog bares its canines. Only Yara and the tattooed elf do not move, staring at the group that stands in their way with defeat in their eyes.

“Zevran, you've grown soft. I expected better of you,” I hear one of them say and the elf flinches as if he was just punched in the gut.

“House Arainai was unsuccessful in its mission, Taliesen,” comes a gentle reprimand. “And you've made yourself quite a name, Warden,” I hear the echoes of the past in this voice, already knowing, to whom it belongs to, and ready myself for the worst. It doesn't wait to come.

“Eannen…” Yara bites her lip and a thin trail of rust rushes down her chin, “my sister…” 

“My name is Anna,” comes the answer and there is no recognition, no trace of memory in it. Teal gave way to gray and northern sun tanned her skin when Yara only grew paler, but she still is a copy of her sister. Steely, unmovable caricature of what once been. Empty in her blissful forgetting.

It all happens at once. Eannen takes off the ground in a leap too fast to track, a dagger aimed at Yara's throat glinting in the sun. The hum of the barrier misplacedly falls around Zevran, a rain of arrows  strikes down Taliesen and his men while the dog’s teeth draw blood from his leg, Alistair pushes forward with his shield up… The time freezes as a body hits the ground, still wrecked by lightning coursing through it and a trail of blood slips down, droplets coloring the pavement red.

Something shifts in her face and she must remember something, because she smiles as life leaves her body.

“Glad...it was...you…” A broken whisper shakes the memory and it starts to crumble as colors flare around me. I grasp desperately at the Fade, trying to see, to hear, to feel what's going on there, on the street of an unnamed human city and the past flashes before my eyes as the lullaby dies down.

... _ you  _ _ must not miss _

“Sister…”

 

I open my eyes to the waning moon and a heavy weight of a blanket on my shoulders. The camp is silent with the approach of the night and only those on guard are awake now, moving silently through the snowed landscape. A bright sparkle of green in the distance catches my attention and I hold Tau’s gaze for a long moment. Then she blinks and disappears into the night, as always.

Where are you now, Yarathim?

**Author's Note:**

> I crave feedback, you know I do.  
> Also, drop by the series if you want to know more about The Darkest Hour 'verse!


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